The Wisconsin men’s basketball team had one final tuneup Tuesday night before hitting the road to New York, and they took care of business against North Dakota, winning 78-64.
The Badgers were led by redshirt freshman forward Ethan Happ who looked much more comfortable on the floor than he had in the team’s first two outings. His confidence led to production, as the big man managed 11 points and six rebounds — four offensive — in just the first half, finishing with a career-high 17 points and seven rebounds in 24 minutes.
The key for Happ was staying out of foul trouble and on the court, as the redshirt freshman failed to play more than 20 minutes in each of the team’s first two games.
He knew that coming into this game and made a conscious effort to play cleaner and stay on the floor.
“It doesn’t take a brainiac to know that you aren’t going to play when you have two fouls in the first half,” Happ said. “I had two fouls early in both games and I paid the price. I didn’t play that much.”
After a slow start to the game, junior guard Bronson Koenig joined Happ, as he finished tied for the team-high with 17 points on 7-of-13 shooting (53.8 percent) and also managed to dish out four assists and five rebounds in 33 minutes.
Despite the final score, UW struggled for majority of the first half offensively, settling for outside shots and making very few, going just 3-of-13 from behind the arc.
After scoring 22 points in the first 10 minutes of the game, the Badgers managed just six in the next eight minutes before ending the final two minutes of the period on a 7-2 run.
Despite the offensive struggles, defense and tenacious rebounding allowed Wisconsin to keep a comfortable lead throughout the entire game, as they grabbed 10 offensive rebounds in the first half and 26 total boards to North Dakota’s 17.
Wisconsin’s shooting struggles ended there, however, as smarter shot selection allowed them to shoot an efficient 15-of-28 (53.6 percent) from the field in the second half and finish with an overall shooting percentage of 44 percent.
Even with the improved shooting, in the end, the victory was built on rebounding, as UW made the North Dakota players’ lives miserable on the offensive boards, out-rebounding them 16-5 on the offensive glass. In total, Wisconsin managed to out-rebound North Dakota 40-31.
Happ was the catalyst of that domination on the glass, as he finished with a game-high five rebounds. Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan says that’s the redshirt freshman’s game, and that is how he will look to contribute, at least for now.
“That’s his game,” Ryan said. “That’s what he has to do for us because he’s not a prolific outside shooter. He knows how to get things done to help a team. That’s what he has to do.”
All five Badger starters managed to score in double figures, with junior forward Vitto Brown finishing with 12 points, junior Nigel Hayes scoring 11 and redshirt junior Zak Showalter 10 of his own. It was that starting unit that ended up carrying the load, as they combined for 67 of the team’s final score of 78 points.
“We’ve come a long way as a group, but we still got a lot to learn,” Showalter said. “But offensively, we are starting to hit some shots and guys are starting to be more comfortable on the court with each other.”
Up next, the Badgers will travel to New York Friday to play Georgetown at Madison Square Garden as part of the 2K Classic.
